Page 29 - ABF Newsletter August 2025

something to be too concerned about, as South will usually lead the {K or his partner’s diamond suit. There was actually just one South player who found the heart lead against 6], earning her side a lovely 91% matchpoint score (instead of the 2% they would have scored if their opponents had made the slam).
The most unusual score on the board was from one North player who tried an “unusual 2NT” bid show- ing both minors, and his partner misunderstood that bid and raised him to 3NT! This was seven down for an incredibly rare score of -700, scoring just 4% of the matchpoints.
Slams are great, but partscores are worth just as many matchpoints. Going from a strong double fit to a weak misfit, just 122 pairs out of 700 managed to stop in 2} on this board:
Board 21. North deals. North-South vulnerable.
]Q653 [A9 }92 {AK932
]9842 ]AK
2NT is not a place to hide with a weak misfitting hand. If you can’t take eight tricks in any of your po- tential trump suits, you’re unlikely to find eight tricks in notrumps. Just look through the hand records of your last session – you will probably find that there is not one deal where 2NT is the only making two-level contract. If you think you can make 2NT, you have to expect that partner will bid 3NT with an extra king.
3) Weaker hands. These hands must take care to keep the bidding below 2NT. Your options are to pass, rebid your own six-card suit at minimum level, make a minimum raise of one of partner’s suits, or bid 1NT.
On this hand, South’s diamond suit is good enough to rebid at minimum level. If South had held only five diamonds, 1NT would have been a better choice – 1NT will usually be easier to make than 2}, espe- cially if diamonds turn out to be a 5-1 fit!
The pairs who got too high probably rebid 2[ instead of 2} (many pairs in the Australia-Wide Novice Pairs event do not play the fourth-suit forcing convention described in the footnote below, so 2[ would be nat- ural). However, 2[ is still a bad bid for two reasons:
(a) a new suit by responder is forcing, while we should be trying to play this hand at the two-level, and
(b) partner will never have heart support in this auc- tion, or he would have rebid 1[, not 1].
Therefore 2[ gets us no closer to finding a fit, yet it keeps pushing the bidding higher.
[ J 10 6 }Q4 {Q876
] J 10 7 [K874 }AJ8653 {—
[Q532 } K 10 7 { J 10 5 4
The remaining pairs were in contracts such as 2NT, 3} or 3NT. Most of the pairs in 3} managed to make it, so no real damage was done, but it could have been much worse. 2NT can also be made in theory, but in practice a lot of pairs went down in that contract.
So how should the bidding have gone?
South’s second bid should be 2}, showing a mini- mum hand with six diamonds:
WEST
pass all pass
NORTH EAST SOUTH
1{ pass 1] pass
1} 2}
The event was won by Ian Wheeldon & Tineke Tamis from Monaro (pictured). Thank you to all of the or- ganisers in the 100 clubs that participated, and also thank you to Paul Lavings Bridge Supplies for their assistance with the prizes.
Footnote: Many pairs (including all tournament players and experts) play a convention called fourth-suit forcing, where a bid of the fourth suit is an artificial game force. This is an incredibly important convention that lets you set up a forcing auction at a low level, so that you can slowly look for your best contract without jumping straight to game, and without worrying about partner passing unexpectedly. In this auction, if you play the fourth-suit forcing convention, South’s bid of the fourth suit in the above auction would be 2[.
In an auction like this, responder’s hand will fall into one of three categories:
1) Game forcing hands. These hands can rebid 3NT or higher, or bid a forcing new suit if there are any new suits left to bid. See footnote --->
2) Invitational hands. These hands can jump in an existing suit (3{, 3}, or 3]) or bid 2NT. In almost any auction, 2NT is an invitational bid – it asks partner to go to 3NT with a non-minimum hand.
Australian Bridge Federation Ltd. Newsletter: August 2025
Page: 29